b2p+sub+p2w all-in-one model will slowly bleed subs down to 1m, then they will do transfer into full p2w eventually, its matter of time

Okay now your just trolling, WoW isn't pay to win and you'll never see subs nosedive that far. Subbing is good for WoW and it's keeping the quality of the game at a decent pace. If WoW went free to play you would see long login queues, more trolls, more gimmicks, and less major updates. In the long run, people will still be whinning that WoW is dead...

I hope it never goes F2P, but wish all these other MMOs would stop failing with their sub fee's. WoW is the only one worthy of it imo.. and most MMO players play this game if you ask me and no one wants to pay 2 monthlies.

This is the main reason I won't play ESO or Wildstar. I would expect those to be B2P not P2P.

Originally Posted by KungFuFanta

Oh my god, a company tries to put some lore flavor into the game mechanics, all is lost, whatever shall we do without a whole 1% of crit or haste.

Quick, call Ukraine and Russia, let them know to put their conflict on standby because Touch of Elune is BULLSHIT!

Even with say, 2million active players, that's still $360m a year from subs, if you assume they are paying for an entire year of subs, at 15$ a month. It's highly unlikely WoW would go F2P even with 1million action players.

Not everyone pays 15 bucks a month namely Asia and they also doesnt pay for expansions.

The one million mark was what WoW needed back in Classic. The developer team is about 96% larger now than the one that made Cata along with other various changes make the actual minimum is unknown right now for us outsiders.

As another poster said, Blizzard will swap when subs are no longer as profitable. Being subscription based appeals to different players than F2P or some box only B2P games. If Blizzard felt that the playerbase would support the move and spend more in a F2P model then the developers might do such. Just because there are players who wont spend money for F2P games doesnt mean others are not willing to dish out enough cash to cover others.

what reason do they have to do this? no not possible reasons. ACTUAL reason that make financial sense. a setup for f2p where it will be financially better for them than now. a tangible clear cut setup where f2p is the way to go.

The game probably won't even have a viable "free to play" model, since most free to play relies on the initial rush, the excitement/newness of the game to make people want to indulge in microtransactions. WoW will have been out around 12 years by the end of WoD, so that's not really an option.

It was born subscription based, and it'll die subscription based. If they ever change the model, it'll be at the end of the game's lifecycle, when it's no longer profitable enough to justify the current expenses for content creation, and they just want to milk as much out of it on its decline as they can - and even then, I doubt "free to play" will be the model they go with. I'd estimate about 2-3 more expansions past WoD, unless some other developer (or Blizzard themselves) introduces a viable alternative that could take a large chunk of the market away from them.

b2p+sub+p2w all-in-one model will slowly bleed subs down to 1m, then they will do transfer into full p2w eventually, its matter of time

From the few data we get on the internet, we see that LoL with its "40 million players" has around 620 million dollars yearly revenue.

The 7.8 million WoW subscriptions brought in over 900 million dollars in 2013.

Some dudes will come in and say it was over 800 million due to the difference in deferred revenue, but ... you get the picture.

From that point we can safely say that WoW will not go f2p soon as I don't see them going to 40 million players to replace all that subscription money.

The point of a possible f2p is probably around 2 million subscriptions. 50% west/50% east.

It may very well be that that point will never be reached though. Why? Because the basic recruitment pool is HUGE for each new expansion OR reincarnation of WoW2. Meaning, there is such a mass of ex WoW players that the drop in subs will level off before that 2 million point is even reached...

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It is very obvious Blizzard has a new policy: keep subscriptions to WoW and make other games with a WoW theme f2p. So you have a hidden recruitment for the "big" MMO game with each new expansion by using the "Hot" new games like HS and HOTS.

Hearthstone is incredibly hot these days. Servers can hardly follow and the iPad and smart phones versions are not even launched yet. The same will happen at the end of 2014 for HOTS. These games will be used to push WoW and are on their own gigantic money makers too.

So it is quite obvious Blizzard intends to hold on to WoW subscriptions. The WoW franchise surpasses the MMO genre with these new f2p games. So Blizzard smartly gets 2 markets: the subscription market as well as the f2p market.

A real nightmare for the well known Blizzard/WoW haters who camp these forums as a goal in life. 2014 will be a new record year in revenue for Blizzard btw. Probably around 1.7 billion dollars...

So if you think about, it's not a matter about if, but when we'll start seeing WoW going free to play. Will it be after WoD? Or maybe after the expansion after the expansion of WoD? Or will it never happen? Now I think about it I included a poll to see what you guys think. I myself think 2 expansions after WoD has to be their moment to change with payment model.

Mod-note: Took the freedom to change the title a little, as the first one could appear misleading.

First question you need to ask is why would they move to a micro-transaction model? Using other MMO as a example is completely wrong. Many of the major MMO went to free to play because their subscription model failed so they move to a micro-transaction. It worked for LOTR. I do not know if it worked for SwToR, Rift and TSW. These are all micro-transaction because their subscription model did not work.

I am only familiar with TSW and while they have new content releases, they are no longer free. In effect they are now DLC. If WoW was free to play, then new raids will be DLC and will probably be released much more infrequently. Expansion packs? Probably will not happen.